[TYPO3] Install\PHP problem

[Derek O]

Hi,

I am having an issue with my first initial setup of Typo3. I have the 
current source/dummy files extracted to the doc root. And the permission 
set for the dirs (per instructions). When I hit the site at 
http://IP/typo3 I get the initial login prompt. But when I enter the 
default user/pass it puts me at the 1-2-3 password page, which I put in 
the 'joh316' password but it just stays at that point. (refreshes page 
with pop-up and then back to 1-2-3 login page).

My first thought was that Sessions are not working on PHP. But I put the 
code in a .php file:

  session_start();
$_SESSION['test'] = "Session ID:";
echo $_SESSION['test'] . ":" . session_id();

...and it displays a new session ID on every refresh. (good?) I am not a 
programmer or a Linux expert but this is suppose to be quite basic of a 
setup.

Setup:
Linux RHEL 4
httpd-2.2.3
MySQL-standard-5.0.24a-0.rhel4
php-5.1.6
phpMyAdmin-2.9.0
freetype-2.2.1
gd-2.0.33
gettext-0.15
httpd-2.2.3
ImageMagick-6.2.9-7
jpegsrc.v6b
libpng-1.2.12
PDFlib-7.0.0
Smarty-2.6.14
tiff-3.8.2-1
zlib-1.2.3


Any thoughts/suggestions/jokes would be greatly appreciated.

Derek